Nutshell Question: Is J2ME (and this forum) for Mobile Phone development primarily, or are PDAs included?

This site (plus a couple others) has been regular reading for me for the last 6 months now. Recently I have been working on a small-scale project while learning game-programming under Java. I knew from the start that this was not going to be very impressive in the realm of modern PC games and would have little commercial value but that didn't matter - it was for personal interrest mostly. Then I started looking seriously into picking up my first PDA (I've been a die-hard Franklin planner user). Naturally, the first thing I checked was what games are available for the Palm PDAs (you can't play Sonic on a Franklin!) and was very impressed.

As I looked into it further, I realized that the scale and scope of my game is probably basic enough to run within the limitations of many of the newer PDAs (8 - 16MB + SD car + 320x320 color display). Also, it would probably be able to generate some interrest as a PDA game where it may not get a second glance from someone running a desktop. I'm still in primarily the design phase and have only started some test code for setting windowed / full screen mode and basic game loop...so it's a good time to make a change.

This weekend I have started to do some research into shifting my target platform over to PalmOS, but most reading on J2ME seems to focus on development for the enabled cell-phones...and those are still significantly tighter on resources and capabilities than my target PDA size. I found on the Palm site the emulators for simulating various devices on your desktop but haven't found anything to even give me a warm-fuzzy that this is viable or find some like-minded developers to chat with.

As a follow-up to myself, I have found a good article at OnJava.com about J2ME / MIDP which is answering some of my questions ( ie J2ME implementation is for any of the "small" devices and MIDP is focused on mobile devices (including phones & PDAs). The implementation on each platform (PalmOS, Nokia phone, etc) is more variable. Right???

So, to change the question slightly...are there any developers here working on a J2ME game geared more to PDA implementation than phone? Any other links or pointers would be appreciated also...

As a follow-up to myself, I have found a good article at OnJava.com about J2ME / MIDP which is answering some of my questions ( ie J2ME implementation is for any of the "small" devices and MIDP is focused on mobile devices (including phones & PDAs). The implementation on each platform (PalmOS, Nokia phone, etc) is more variable. Right???

So, to change the question slightly...are there any developers here working on a J2ME game geared more to PDA implementation than phone? Any other links or pointers would be appreciated also...

-Lawrence

Okay I see where you are going..

PDAs and SmartPhones require the sylus/point input acceptance..

Some of the latest J2ME bookas and tutorials cover how to do this..

Basically PDAs and Smartphones are almost the same when developign for J2ME...

Since SonyEricsson has SmartPhones with J2EM using UIq via SymbianOS you should be able to ask on thier forums how to do stylus/pen inut in j2me..

:-/Im not sure if I fully understand your question...but here's a go at a fuzzy answer...

Ive mainly looked at phone applications, but some phones like Sony p800 has similar attributes to a PDA ( stylus, large screen).

Personally, I would implement the game in MIDP2 as it is pretty standard across devices. MIDP2 also offers some new impressive features, absent in MIDP1.I also prefer java coding to C++ Symbian coding (never tried coding for palmOS or Windwos CE though). However, each manufacturer has their own specialised libraries, so the standardised bonus begins to fall away when you start relying to much on device-specific libraries.

The main decision for you, would be your target device. If its PDA's then what manufacturer, what model? Do you focus on 1 type of device or preferably a range of devices? Do you intend to focus on devices that may support the new MIDP2(e.g. nokias first MIDP2 devices only come out end of this year)? Does your game require use of specialised libraries if you were to implement in MIDP2? What kind of performance, memory, connectivity do you need (java connectivity in MIDP1 has been a bit buggy/sluggish in comparison to using Symbian C++ for e.g.)?

Once you've answered these, you can determine your technical setup and development solution.

hope that helps.

good sites are: - gamasutra.com (they have a special mobile game resource, if you find it, its very informative)- this place- forumnokia- sun's wireless and j2me sites

Thanks. I've actually already registered w/ PalmOS developer site and have pulled down the emulators for some of the machines I'm targeting. I haven't run them yet, however. I hope to get into that next week when I start some practice code.

What I'm still trying to understand and research now is how MIDP is implemented by the different OS's. Web searches are not coming up with very useful info, and I don't want to put a messae in to the PalmOS folks until I have done enough of my own homework. Basically though, I hope to use MIDP2 for my project, but am having trouble understanding if it works yet in PalmOS v5.

From my reading, it seems like the MIDP2 runtime can be built into the application, but I also can only find a specific RTE download for MIDP1 for PalmOS v3.5 and later. I'm seeing people developing MIDP2 apps for specific phone devices, but even those are not listed on Sun's web site as having an MIDP2 download available. So is MIDP2 implemented by the OS developer, by Sun on a per-OS basis (I doubt this one), or can it be included with an app as long as it's running on the proper version of J2ME for a particular OS???

Does anyone have a good link (or can provide a basic explanation) of this ??

Thanks. I've actually already registered w/ PalmOS developer site and have pulled down the emulators for some of the machines I'm targeting. I haven't run them yet, however. I hope to get into that next week when I start some practice code.

What I'm still trying to understand and research now is how MIDP is implemented by the different OS's. Web searches are not coming up with very useful info, and I don't want to put a messae in to the PalmOS folks until I have done enough of my own homework. Basically though, I hope to use MIDP2 for my project, but am having trouble understanding if it works yet in PalmOS v5.

From my reading, it seems like the MIDP2 runtime can be built into the application, but I also can only find a specific RTE download for MIDP1 for PalmOS v3.5 and later. I'm seeing people developing MIDP2 apps for specific phone devices, but even those are not listed on Sun's web site as having an MIDP2 download available. So is MIDP2 implemented by the OS developer, by Sun on a per-OS basis (I doubt this one), or can it be included with an app as long as it's running on the proper version of J2ME for a particular OS???

Does anyone have a good link (or can provide a basic explanation) of this ??

-L

Fine print at pluggedin.palm.com indicates that j9 will not be MIDP2.0 compliant until next release..ie current Tungsten devices do not run MIDP2.0!

MIDP2.0 i s not out in a mojrity of devices..will not reach saturation for about 3 years..write for MIDP1.0 instead..while learnign MIDP2.0

"Fine print at pluggedin.palm.com indicates that j9 will not be MIDP2.0 compliant until next release..ie current Tungsten devices do not run MIDP2.0! MIDP2.0 i s not out in a mojrity of devices..will not reach saturation for about 3 years..write for MIDP1.0 instead..while learnign MIDP2.0 "

Thanks for the tip. I'll probably go that route. I knew most current devices (even the newer ones) didn't come shipped w/ MIDP2, but I was hoping that it may be a near-future upgrade (many of these devices allow you to upgrade your OS) or something that can be bundled in with the game (like installing libraries). It's not looking that way. I guess I'd better dig up a good tutorial on MIDP1 (both of mine I'm using are MIDP2) and start unlearning! ;-)

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